What Our Parents Get Us Into
Yesterday, in our women’s bible study, we were talking about the prophecy of the birth of John the Baptist. When his father was told that he would be born, he was also told what to name his son and that his son was to never take wine or other fermented drink. Samson was born into a similar religious vow. His mother was told her son would be a Nazirite, which involves several vows made in the name of spirituality, vows that were usually voluntary, but for Samson were a fact of life.
This got me to thinking about the kinds of things that our parents get us into. It’s all sorts of things. My mother bought certain brands of foods when she grocery shopped and I buy those same brands today. Family traditions. Political leanings. Choice of religion. Things from little to big, insignificant to life altering. Parents have far reaching influence.
Thinking further, I noted that John the Baptist thrived in the vow that was part and parcel with his birth. Samson did not. The same is true with all of the things I mentioned before. Just because a parent influences a child in a certain way does not mean that that will “stick”. Just ask my mother-in-law sometime about how different her son is from her in certain beliefs for an example. But, this isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, a child who is confident in his ability to think for himself and who is open to other ways of thinking is a great compliment to his parents, I believe.
Now, we have earthly parents and we have a heavenly Father. Just as our earthly parents get us into things when we are young, so does our Father in heaven if we are lucky enough to be raised in the church. As we grow in our faith, we are striving to hear, learn and internalize all things that come from our heavenly Father. We are hoping to “get into” whatever God wants us to. We want all of His influences to stick. We want to thrive in our vows to Him that come along with being His chosen children.
Let us pray:
Lord, please watch over all of us as we strive to be under your influence in everything we do. Open our ears that we may hear your quiet whisperings to us, our eyes that we may see your glory, our hearts that we may feel and share your love, and our minds that we may understand what it is to be a child of God. In the name of your son, Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
Monday, July 19, 2004
Monday, May 17, 2004
Devotional: Faith Circle May 2004
Maury graduates from preschool this Thursday. I find it hard to believe that he is old enough to have reached this milestone. But, that really is just an emotional response to this, not a logical one, because when I look at all that little boy can do and all he knows, it really should be no surprise that he is ready for kindergarten. It is truly amazing is how much learning he has packed into his short life. He came to us a clean slate, a perfect newborn boy with the world before him. We taught him what we could about the basics in life: how to eat, walk, talk. The preschool taught him so much more: colors, shapes, numbers, letters, words. He has absorbed everything put before him and now he is ready to go on to the next level. Being a parent makes me understand a little better how God must feel about each and every one of us. He has not only known us since the day we were born, but before we were born. He placed us lovingly in the homes we grew up in. He left us to others to care for and raise, but He is still very much our Father, our parent. I am sure that He, like most parents, is amused by some of the things we do, not so amused by others. I am sure He wonders where we learned some of the things that we have learned…both good and bad. I am sure that He has times of great pride in His children and also times of great despair.
Watching Maury grow and learn reminds me of what I feel our purpose on earth is: to grow and learn and, in the process, grow closer to our Father by doing His work. In that sense, I wonder if He grants spiritual promotion in the same way that our schools grant scholarly promotion? If we seem to “get” most of what is being taught on a certain level, do we then get promoted to the next level? I don’t know about you, but sometimes I feel like I was demoted when I am facing yet another lesson in the same curriculum of life, one that is so similar to one I had before but clearly did not learn from. Still, there are moments of glorious understanding, moments when I feel ready to tackle new spiritual challenges, ready to move up to the next level.
So, as Maury walks down the aisle at graduation this Thursday, I will be thinking about what I need to do to move on to the next level in my walk with God.
Let us pray: Dear Heavenly Father, please be with us all as we attend your school here on earth. Show us all that however many days we have left here, you have valuable things to teach us if we will just take the time to sit at your feet and listen. Grant us your Spirit as a guide that we may not miss a single lesson set before us. These things we pray in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ Our Lord, Amen.
Sunday, April 25, 2004
Sermon: UMW Sunday April 2004
I. (Thank you to UMW)
A. Good morning. Before I begin, I want to say what an honor it is to speak to all of you today.
1. First, I am just honored to have this opportunity to talk to this church, which I love with all my heart. I hope I will say something that is of value to at least one of you here today and, in some small way, start to repay you for all you have done for me in my years of membership here.
2. Second, I am honored to be here representing United Methodist Women. I can’t say enough about how wonderful it is to be part of UMW. I love the fellowship I share with so many different women who I wouldn’t know as I do without UMW. I hope all of the women who are here today who are not a part of one of our Circles will consider visiting them and finding a home in one of them. It is well worth your time.
II. (Reflection on Easter)
A. When Kittye asked me if I would consider speaking to you today, I was very excited about the chance…especially since it is still the Easter season.
B. See, this Easter was very special for me.
1. The last year has been a real spiritual journey for me. Easter was the culmination of a year of reflection and rebirth in faith. It meant more to me than any Easter I can remember. I am so thankful to Bee, who helped me find this new life in Christ by sharing a wonderful Bible study with our Sunday School class, and to others in the church that have helped me grow in this new life, my mother-in-law, my husband, our ministers, the Faith Circle, and the FAITH Sunday School Class.
III. (Thoughts on the Book of Hebrews/Anthem)
A. The message I chose to bring to you today was inspired by the anthem the UMW choir just sang.
1. The anthem was about the final Atonement Day that was Good Friday. The sacrifice of the ultimate Passover Lamb. The glory and wonder of having our sins washed away by our Lord.
B. Under Mosaic law,
1. once a year, there was an Atonement Day. This was a day where sacrifices were made by the priests to redeem the people for all of their sins since the last Atonement Day.
2. But, please note that this had to occur every single year. No one sacrifice was able to take away all sin for all time.
3. An even more important annual event was Passover.
a) During Passover, an unblemished lamb was offered as part of a ritual of remembrance of the first Passover…when God’s wrath came upon the Egyptians in the form of a plague which took the lives of all firstborn men and animals. The Jewish people who obeyed God’s commands for that first Passover were spared, and subsequently freed from slavery. The event was remembered each subsequent year in a series of ceremonies that grew in length and meaning as time went by.
b) This very Jewish feast of Passover was the one that Jesus was celebrating with his disciples in what was the Lord’s Supper. Today we celebrate the sacrifice of Jesus as that final Passover Lamb every time we break bread and drink the wine of Holy Communion.
C. The author of the book of Hebrews was trying to demonstrate to the Jews of his day just that fact…that Jesus was the final Passover Lamb and not just the new administrator of Jewish law, some sort of successor to Moses (HALLEY’S). The author goes into great detail describing how Jesus is superior to all of the Old Testament prophets and leaders, sacrifices and rituals.
1. How Christ was the perfect sacrifice. He was the pure, unblemished Passover Lamb who took all of the sin of the world on His shoulders, suffered and died, and conquered sin for all time.
2. After His sacrifice, there is no need for any other. It is finished. In fact, Christ said so himself from the cross. “It is finished.” It is paid for. Forever.
IV. Now, I know that we all know that sacrifices are not necessary anymore. But, surely that is not the end of the story. We know we can’t earn the gift that God granted us through the sacrifice of His son, but we know we need to do something as believers to at least try to earn it.
A. (Repent and sin no more)
1. Even in the Old Testament days, merely sacrificing animals and possessions was not enough to receive God’s forgiveness.
a) Repentance was a necessary companion to sacrifice.
b) For example, Leviticus, after a lengthy list of sins that it was possible for the people to be guilty of, states “When anyone is guilty in any of these ways, he must confess in what way he has sinned AND, as a penalty for the sin, he must bring to the Lord a female lamb…..” so on and so forth. (Lev 5:5-6a)
c) There is no reason to believe that this requirement to repent of our sins went away when Jesus died for us.
d) We need to repent and not just in generalities. We shouldn’t just ask God to forgive our sins as a blanket request. We need to be very specific about what we have done that we desire forgiveness for.
e) Why? If you can’t be specific about where you have sinned, you run the risk of not being aware of it! If you don’t know what sins you have committed in order to ask specifically for their forgiveness, you need to pray for your eyes to be opened to them.
f) It is also necessary to be specific about your sins because, in this way, you are creating an open and honest relationship with God. If you are too ashamed of what you did to confide in God, why should He forgive you? He wants us to be honest with Him and in this honesty is the blessing of a wonderful relationship with our Lord.
V. Let’s get back to our scripture reading today. The author of Hebrews offers suggestions to his readers as to what it is they should be doing since the old ways had been made obsolete through Jesus’ death. These are all things we, too, should heed today. First, he says,
A. “Let us draw near to God”. In what ways can we do that?
1. (Prayer)
a) Think about this: When you truly love someone, how does this manifest itself in your life? Think about when you first met the person that you ended up marrying. Or when you first met someone who became a very good friend. What did you do? You spent enormous amounts of time with them! How else to you form relationships with others?
b) This is what prayer and meditation are all about. If we truly love God (and we know He loves us), we should want to spend all the time we have with Him. And, the beauty of this relationship is that we never have the excuse that He is not nearby!
c) “May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice” Psalm 141:2
2. (Study of His word)
a) Another glorious thing about this relationship is that we have His word to study. This is another way to draw near to God.
b) Who can ever say that they know all that there is to know from the Bible? The Bible may be an old book, but it is not a dead book. It is as alive as it was when the words contained in it were first put on paper. And, it is a way to make your relationship with Christ alive.
c) How many of you have opened the Bible and seen just the words you needed to hear, as if coming from your closest friend in your hour of need? Do you think that the authors of the Bible thought that the words they were writing would be used 2000 years later to encourage people who were suffering from things they never could have imagined then? The human authors couldn’t have….but the One Author above surely did.
3. We should specifically use the study of the word of God to take His Son as a role model.
a) There is a wealth of life giving, life saving truth to be found by studying the teachings and ministries of Jesus. It was surely Jesus’ purpose to become a model for all who would follow identifying themselves in relationship to Him as Christians.
b) Don’t think that you are 2000 years too late to be a disciple of Jesus. We may have missed the chance to walk in His footsteps physically, but we CAN walk with Him spirtually. We should strive to do that every day, every moment.
4. (Worship)
a) “Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise-the fruit of lips that confess his name,” the author of Hebrews writes in Chapter 13.
b) A sacrifice of praise…worship.
c) In The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren lays out five purposes for all of our lives as Christians. The first is that we are here to please God through worship.
d) And, worship should be a part of our every movement. We should honor Him in our work, in our caring for our families, in our fellowship with our friends, and in our worshipping at church, not just in the latter.
e) Worship is not about us and what we get out of it…it is about pleasing God. Thanking Him for His many blessings. Honoring Him. Drawing near to Him.
B. After advising to draw near to God, the author of Hebrews goes on to say, “Hold on to the hope that you profess”
1. The hope that we profess. This one takes a minute to think about and let it sink in, I think.
2. I just talked about how we are to draw near to God through things such as worship. Worship and praise. Praise which proclaims His greatness….His wonderful acts. The things He has done for us to give us the hope that we will have eternal life with Him. The hope that all of this STUFF that we endure on earth will pass and we will rise above it through God’s grace and mercy.
3. Therefore, in commanding us to hold on to the hope that we profess, the author is exhorting us to hold on tightly to this faith that we proclaim. Two things come to mind when analyzing this further:
a) One, there is a risk that we could lose this faith…and that it is a valuable thing we should grasp hold of firmly to keep from losing it.
(1) Faith is a tricky thing, largely because of the very nature of it. One of the definitions of faith in Merriam Webster’s dictionary is “firm belief in something for which there is no proof”. I’m not getting into an argument about the proof question, but I do want to make a point about how faith can feel at those vulnerable moments in your life.
(2) You lose a family member and you feel more alone than you have ever felt in your life. The faith you have that you are never alone can leave you.
(3) You find out a dear Christian friend has a terminal illness. The faith you have that God is good and loving starts to fade.
(4) You try to start your own family while everyone around you is having one, two, three children. The faith you have that God has a plan for your life to prosper you and give you joy begins to waiver.
(5) Yes, faith in God can start to look downright crazy when you are hurting and want comforting that comes from everything being made instantly OK…but this is when we need to take care to hold especially tight to our beliefs and those things that we KNOW in our hearts to be true.
b) In addition to the fact that faith is something we need to hold tightly to lest we lose it, the advice to hold on tightly to the hope we profess reminds me that we should not be holding onto it so tightly that we are not sharing it with others by witnessing.
(1) A story from a book that I’m reading called “If You Want to Walk on the Water, You Have to Get Out of the Boat” comes to mind here. The author of the book, John Ortberg, tells a tale of a woman whose mother dies and she discovers in the attic a beautiful set of china. Her mother had purchased the china years earlier and, because it was so valuable and special, she boxed it up and never used it lest it should get broken.
(2) Oh, how many times do we do that with things we declare in our minds are valuable. What a waste! Do you know what the woman in the book did with the china she found? She took it out and used it every day. She enjoyed its beauty daily. She shared it with others so that they, too, could enjoy it.
(3) This is what our faith should be like. If your faith truly gives you hope and peace and comfort and joy….all things of incredible value, you shouldn’t be a hog and not share that with others. There is plenty to go around and, after all, it is what Jesus told us to do in The Great Commission.
c) And, remember all of those scenarios I just talked about where people who are Christians already are starting to sag under the weight of their own sufferings and doubts? Those people could very well be the people you are sitting next to today. Don’t think for a minute that this witnessing is something just for the “outsiders” who don’t know Christ. I contend that witnessing includes fanning the embers of a fire that is starting to go out in those who do know Christ. Share your fire with others who need a little help getting spiritually ignited if you have it to share. Maybe someone will return the favor later on to you when you need it.
C. After advising us to hold tight to our hope, the author says we should “Consider how to spur one another on to acts of love and good deeds”
1. When I thought about this, I asked myself: “what is the best way to spur one another on to love others and to do good deeds?” My answer was, “By loving them first and doing good deeds for them”.
2. My kids are a great example of this sort of “spurring on”. Maury, in a blatant attempt to get attention, decides to start standing in his chair in the living room instead of sitting in it. Not to be outdone, Lizzie thinks, well, if standing in the chair is so worthy of mom and dad’s attention, what will happen if I stand in my chair, step over the arm onto the table next to it and jump off with a nice little arm flourish at the end? Maury, of course, adds a couple of extra steps, jumps and flourishes in the increasing obstacle course of attention getting and everyone ends up in time out.
3. They may be kids and this was an example of negative attention being given, but we are all pretty Pavlovian when it comes to our responses to people loving us and being nice to us.
4. Have you ever been asked by someone why you love them? Do you ever want to respond, because you love me? Silly perhaps, but isn’t it sort of a wonderful unbreakable cycle once you are in it?
5. I challenge all of you to take a look at 1 Corinthians chapter 13 this week. This is the famous “love” passage that all good weddings include. Don’t let the familiarity of the passage trick you into just skimming over the words again. Really study it. This passage is about so much more than the kind of love that you find at a wedding ceremony. This is about what God’s love for us is about and what we should strive for in our relationships with EVERYONE.
6. This is what Jesus meant by love when he said that “To love [God] with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices” (Mark 12:33)
D. Finally, the author stresses to the readers: “Do not get out of the habit of meeting together”
1. Meeting together. Church. The body of Christ. This is where all of the prior teachings hit the road.
2. When I started today’s message, I told you that this had been an amazing year for me. Let me tell you a little bit more about that.
a) I was blessed enough to be born into a loving Christian family. We went to church and Sunday School every Sunday when we were young. Then, as a lot of young people do unfortunately, I wandered further and further away from church as I went through college and my young professional life.
b) Fortunately, Steve was also raised in a loving Christian family and had the same sort of upbringing as I had had. But, still, when we were first married we were sporadic at best about coming to church. Then Maury came along and there were even more excuses and glitches in getting ourselves to church.
c) By the time Lizzie was born we were solidly out of the church going habit. When we would come, she was pretty unhappy to be left in the nursery and that was like some sort of negative reinforcement for us to just stay home.
d) But, somehow, Steve and I both seemed to wake up to this realization on New Years Day 2003: we need to be going to church…all the time. So, we started coming every Sunday. I started going back to the FAITH Class. Lizzie persevered in the nursery. Maury was old enough for real Sunday School and he LOVED it. I started really enjoying the Bible study Bee was teaching us in the FAITH Class. Steve started attending the men’s breakfasts. I started going to Faith Circle again…every month. We both got involved in different phases of the Next Step process. Steve preached….TWICE. I started teaching Sunday School.
e) Our entire life together is changed and it wouldn’t have happened without habitually meeting together with the members of this church.
f) We are all family in Christ, if we just give of ourselves…our time, our gifts, our love…
3. Peter said in 1 Peter chapter 2 that we, “like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ”. To be built into a spiritual house, we all have to be here….together….regularly. Give your church your commitment and I promise it will never let you down.
A. Good morning. Before I begin, I want to say what an honor it is to speak to all of you today.
1. First, I am just honored to have this opportunity to talk to this church, which I love with all my heart. I hope I will say something that is of value to at least one of you here today and, in some small way, start to repay you for all you have done for me in my years of membership here.
2. Second, I am honored to be here representing United Methodist Women. I can’t say enough about how wonderful it is to be part of UMW. I love the fellowship I share with so many different women who I wouldn’t know as I do without UMW. I hope all of the women who are here today who are not a part of one of our Circles will consider visiting them and finding a home in one of them. It is well worth your time.
II. (Reflection on Easter)
A. When Kittye asked me if I would consider speaking to you today, I was very excited about the chance…especially since it is still the Easter season.
B. See, this Easter was very special for me.
1. The last year has been a real spiritual journey for me. Easter was the culmination of a year of reflection and rebirth in faith. It meant more to me than any Easter I can remember. I am so thankful to Bee, who helped me find this new life in Christ by sharing a wonderful Bible study with our Sunday School class, and to others in the church that have helped me grow in this new life, my mother-in-law, my husband, our ministers, the Faith Circle, and the FAITH Sunday School Class.
III. (Thoughts on the Book of Hebrews/Anthem)
A. The message I chose to bring to you today was inspired by the anthem the UMW choir just sang.
1. The anthem was about the final Atonement Day that was Good Friday. The sacrifice of the ultimate Passover Lamb. The glory and wonder of having our sins washed away by our Lord.
B. Under Mosaic law,
1. once a year, there was an Atonement Day. This was a day where sacrifices were made by the priests to redeem the people for all of their sins since the last Atonement Day.
2. But, please note that this had to occur every single year. No one sacrifice was able to take away all sin for all time.
3. An even more important annual event was Passover.
a) During Passover, an unblemished lamb was offered as part of a ritual of remembrance of the first Passover…when God’s wrath came upon the Egyptians in the form of a plague which took the lives of all firstborn men and animals. The Jewish people who obeyed God’s commands for that first Passover were spared, and subsequently freed from slavery. The event was remembered each subsequent year in a series of ceremonies that grew in length and meaning as time went by.
b) This very Jewish feast of Passover was the one that Jesus was celebrating with his disciples in what was the Lord’s Supper. Today we celebrate the sacrifice of Jesus as that final Passover Lamb every time we break bread and drink the wine of Holy Communion.
C. The author of the book of Hebrews was trying to demonstrate to the Jews of his day just that fact…that Jesus was the final Passover Lamb and not just the new administrator of Jewish law, some sort of successor to Moses (HALLEY’S). The author goes into great detail describing how Jesus is superior to all of the Old Testament prophets and leaders, sacrifices and rituals.
1. How Christ was the perfect sacrifice. He was the pure, unblemished Passover Lamb who took all of the sin of the world on His shoulders, suffered and died, and conquered sin for all time.
2. After His sacrifice, there is no need for any other. It is finished. In fact, Christ said so himself from the cross. “It is finished.” It is paid for. Forever.
IV. Now, I know that we all know that sacrifices are not necessary anymore. But, surely that is not the end of the story. We know we can’t earn the gift that God granted us through the sacrifice of His son, but we know we need to do something as believers to at least try to earn it.
A. (Repent and sin no more)
1. Even in the Old Testament days, merely sacrificing animals and possessions was not enough to receive God’s forgiveness.
a) Repentance was a necessary companion to sacrifice.
b) For example, Leviticus, after a lengthy list of sins that it was possible for the people to be guilty of, states “When anyone is guilty in any of these ways, he must confess in what way he has sinned AND, as a penalty for the sin, he must bring to the Lord a female lamb…..” so on and so forth. (Lev 5:5-6a)
c) There is no reason to believe that this requirement to repent of our sins went away when Jesus died for us.
d) We need to repent and not just in generalities. We shouldn’t just ask God to forgive our sins as a blanket request. We need to be very specific about what we have done that we desire forgiveness for.
e) Why? If you can’t be specific about where you have sinned, you run the risk of not being aware of it! If you don’t know what sins you have committed in order to ask specifically for their forgiveness, you need to pray for your eyes to be opened to them.
f) It is also necessary to be specific about your sins because, in this way, you are creating an open and honest relationship with God. If you are too ashamed of what you did to confide in God, why should He forgive you? He wants us to be honest with Him and in this honesty is the blessing of a wonderful relationship with our Lord.
V. Let’s get back to our scripture reading today. The author of Hebrews offers suggestions to his readers as to what it is they should be doing since the old ways had been made obsolete through Jesus’ death. These are all things we, too, should heed today. First, he says,
A. “Let us draw near to God”. In what ways can we do that?
1. (Prayer)
a) Think about this: When you truly love someone, how does this manifest itself in your life? Think about when you first met the person that you ended up marrying. Or when you first met someone who became a very good friend. What did you do? You spent enormous amounts of time with them! How else to you form relationships with others?
b) This is what prayer and meditation are all about. If we truly love God (and we know He loves us), we should want to spend all the time we have with Him. And, the beauty of this relationship is that we never have the excuse that He is not nearby!
c) “May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice” Psalm 141:2
2. (Study of His word)
a) Another glorious thing about this relationship is that we have His word to study. This is another way to draw near to God.
b) Who can ever say that they know all that there is to know from the Bible? The Bible may be an old book, but it is not a dead book. It is as alive as it was when the words contained in it were first put on paper. And, it is a way to make your relationship with Christ alive.
c) How many of you have opened the Bible and seen just the words you needed to hear, as if coming from your closest friend in your hour of need? Do you think that the authors of the Bible thought that the words they were writing would be used 2000 years later to encourage people who were suffering from things they never could have imagined then? The human authors couldn’t have….but the One Author above surely did.
3. We should specifically use the study of the word of God to take His Son as a role model.
a) There is a wealth of life giving, life saving truth to be found by studying the teachings and ministries of Jesus. It was surely Jesus’ purpose to become a model for all who would follow identifying themselves in relationship to Him as Christians.
b) Don’t think that you are 2000 years too late to be a disciple of Jesus. We may have missed the chance to walk in His footsteps physically, but we CAN walk with Him spirtually. We should strive to do that every day, every moment.
4. (Worship)
a) “Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise-the fruit of lips that confess his name,” the author of Hebrews writes in Chapter 13.
b) A sacrifice of praise…worship.
c) In The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren lays out five purposes for all of our lives as Christians. The first is that we are here to please God through worship.
d) And, worship should be a part of our every movement. We should honor Him in our work, in our caring for our families, in our fellowship with our friends, and in our worshipping at church, not just in the latter.
e) Worship is not about us and what we get out of it…it is about pleasing God. Thanking Him for His many blessings. Honoring Him. Drawing near to Him.
B. After advising to draw near to God, the author of Hebrews goes on to say, “Hold on to the hope that you profess”
1. The hope that we profess. This one takes a minute to think about and let it sink in, I think.
2. I just talked about how we are to draw near to God through things such as worship. Worship and praise. Praise which proclaims His greatness….His wonderful acts. The things He has done for us to give us the hope that we will have eternal life with Him. The hope that all of this STUFF that we endure on earth will pass and we will rise above it through God’s grace and mercy.
3. Therefore, in commanding us to hold on to the hope that we profess, the author is exhorting us to hold on tightly to this faith that we proclaim. Two things come to mind when analyzing this further:
a) One, there is a risk that we could lose this faith…and that it is a valuable thing we should grasp hold of firmly to keep from losing it.
(1) Faith is a tricky thing, largely because of the very nature of it. One of the definitions of faith in Merriam Webster’s dictionary is “firm belief in something for which there is no proof”. I’m not getting into an argument about the proof question, but I do want to make a point about how faith can feel at those vulnerable moments in your life.
(2) You lose a family member and you feel more alone than you have ever felt in your life. The faith you have that you are never alone can leave you.
(3) You find out a dear Christian friend has a terminal illness. The faith you have that God is good and loving starts to fade.
(4) You try to start your own family while everyone around you is having one, two, three children. The faith you have that God has a plan for your life to prosper you and give you joy begins to waiver.
(5) Yes, faith in God can start to look downright crazy when you are hurting and want comforting that comes from everything being made instantly OK…but this is when we need to take care to hold especially tight to our beliefs and those things that we KNOW in our hearts to be true.
b) In addition to the fact that faith is something we need to hold tightly to lest we lose it, the advice to hold on tightly to the hope we profess reminds me that we should not be holding onto it so tightly that we are not sharing it with others by witnessing.
(1) A story from a book that I’m reading called “If You Want to Walk on the Water, You Have to Get Out of the Boat” comes to mind here. The author of the book, John Ortberg, tells a tale of a woman whose mother dies and she discovers in the attic a beautiful set of china. Her mother had purchased the china years earlier and, because it was so valuable and special, she boxed it up and never used it lest it should get broken.
(2) Oh, how many times do we do that with things we declare in our minds are valuable. What a waste! Do you know what the woman in the book did with the china she found? She took it out and used it every day. She enjoyed its beauty daily. She shared it with others so that they, too, could enjoy it.
(3) This is what our faith should be like. If your faith truly gives you hope and peace and comfort and joy….all things of incredible value, you shouldn’t be a hog and not share that with others. There is plenty to go around and, after all, it is what Jesus told us to do in The Great Commission.
c) And, remember all of those scenarios I just talked about where people who are Christians already are starting to sag under the weight of their own sufferings and doubts? Those people could very well be the people you are sitting next to today. Don’t think for a minute that this witnessing is something just for the “outsiders” who don’t know Christ. I contend that witnessing includes fanning the embers of a fire that is starting to go out in those who do know Christ. Share your fire with others who need a little help getting spiritually ignited if you have it to share. Maybe someone will return the favor later on to you when you need it.
C. After advising us to hold tight to our hope, the author says we should “Consider how to spur one another on to acts of love and good deeds”
1. When I thought about this, I asked myself: “what is the best way to spur one another on to love others and to do good deeds?” My answer was, “By loving them first and doing good deeds for them”.
2. My kids are a great example of this sort of “spurring on”. Maury, in a blatant attempt to get attention, decides to start standing in his chair in the living room instead of sitting in it. Not to be outdone, Lizzie thinks, well, if standing in the chair is so worthy of mom and dad’s attention, what will happen if I stand in my chair, step over the arm onto the table next to it and jump off with a nice little arm flourish at the end? Maury, of course, adds a couple of extra steps, jumps and flourishes in the increasing obstacle course of attention getting and everyone ends up in time out.
3. They may be kids and this was an example of negative attention being given, but we are all pretty Pavlovian when it comes to our responses to people loving us and being nice to us.
4. Have you ever been asked by someone why you love them? Do you ever want to respond, because you love me? Silly perhaps, but isn’t it sort of a wonderful unbreakable cycle once you are in it?
5. I challenge all of you to take a look at 1 Corinthians chapter 13 this week. This is the famous “love” passage that all good weddings include. Don’t let the familiarity of the passage trick you into just skimming over the words again. Really study it. This passage is about so much more than the kind of love that you find at a wedding ceremony. This is about what God’s love for us is about and what we should strive for in our relationships with EVERYONE.
6. This is what Jesus meant by love when he said that “To love [God] with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices” (Mark 12:33)
D. Finally, the author stresses to the readers: “Do not get out of the habit of meeting together”
1. Meeting together. Church. The body of Christ. This is where all of the prior teachings hit the road.
2. When I started today’s message, I told you that this had been an amazing year for me. Let me tell you a little bit more about that.
a) I was blessed enough to be born into a loving Christian family. We went to church and Sunday School every Sunday when we were young. Then, as a lot of young people do unfortunately, I wandered further and further away from church as I went through college and my young professional life.
b) Fortunately, Steve was also raised in a loving Christian family and had the same sort of upbringing as I had had. But, still, when we were first married we were sporadic at best about coming to church. Then Maury came along and there were even more excuses and glitches in getting ourselves to church.
c) By the time Lizzie was born we were solidly out of the church going habit. When we would come, she was pretty unhappy to be left in the nursery and that was like some sort of negative reinforcement for us to just stay home.
d) But, somehow, Steve and I both seemed to wake up to this realization on New Years Day 2003: we need to be going to church…all the time. So, we started coming every Sunday. I started going back to the FAITH Class. Lizzie persevered in the nursery. Maury was old enough for real Sunday School and he LOVED it. I started really enjoying the Bible study Bee was teaching us in the FAITH Class. Steve started attending the men’s breakfasts. I started going to Faith Circle again…every month. We both got involved in different phases of the Next Step process. Steve preached….TWICE. I started teaching Sunday School.
e) Our entire life together is changed and it wouldn’t have happened without habitually meeting together with the members of this church.
f) We are all family in Christ, if we just give of ourselves…our time, our gifts, our love…
3. Peter said in 1 Peter chapter 2 that we, “like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ”. To be built into a spiritual house, we all have to be here….together….regularly. Give your church your commitment and I promise it will never let you down.
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